


how comes this gentle concord in the world

by apolloadama



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Biting, Blowjobs, F/M, Fingering, Frottage, Hair Pulling, Het Sex, M/M, Mates, Multi, Scent Marking, unfinished work, warning for mentions of past abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 05:49:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolloadama/pseuds/apolloadama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isaac wants, but he's not sure what ... except it involves Scott. Tutoring Scott in English clarifies some things for both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how comes this gentle concord in the world

**Author's Note:**

> This is an unfinished Scott/Isaac fic. I started this last July (nine months ago) and then hit major writer's block, got a full time job, and haven't had any creative energy since then. Still, I had written so much of this I felt bad not putting it out there, and if the response is good I'd like to finish it.
> 
> A major shoutout to [Dan](http://ohdanners.tumblr.com), who always betas my fics even when he has no time to do so. Also thank yous to [Bri](http://marchingonnn.tumblr.com) and [Alice](http://sevensunsarerising.tumblr.com) for reading this and trying to help me along when my brain just wasn't willing. Your encouragement and support has been so wonderful. 
> 
> One of the later scenes draws inspiration from [this gorgeous fanart](http://teleporting.tumblr.com/post/33903388672/brumous-insomnia-came-calling-i-responded-with) by Brumous, who is hands down my favorite artist in the Teen Wolf fandom (as well as in general on Tumblr).

Isaac is warm. He feels like he’s drowning in it, and though his brain reaches for consciousness, it’s also wrapped in a heavy blanket of sleep still fuzzing out everything and keeping him from coming fully awake. He knows there is a body pressed against his chest, smooth legs tangled up in his, and a cloud of hair somewhere in front of his face, presumably part of the head tucked in the curve of his neck, under his chin.

He can’t quite open his eyes but he doesn’t rely on his vision so much anymore anyway, not since he was changed. He breathes in deep and it’s Erica, her flowery sweet scent so thick like he’s sleeping on a bed of lilacs, and it’s not unpleasant—not at all unpleasant. They’re both naked, skin pressing against skin and feeling burning hot wherever they’re touching together. Isaac vaguely notes that it must be early afternoon, because the sun is beating in warm and all-encompassing through the window, and the breeze that blows in isn’t touched with the crisp cold of night at all—it’s hot and smells like grass and trees.

And also Isaac is hungry, so hungry, feeling like his stomach is eating itself. They had been up and staggered in the Hale home just past dawn, eating whatever they could find in the cupboards Derek was slowly filling with food (a bribe to stay close to him, to sleep here when they could, to be a real pack instead of just soldiers who came and went). So his hunger tells him it’s more than several hours past that. He’s almost faint with it, his head beginning to throb and his mouth dry.

“Mmph,” Isaac groans, struggling weakly to push himself off the mattress he’s sleeping on with Erica, but she’s strong and still dead asleep and he can’t get away.

“Erica,” he murmurs against her hair, jostling his shoulders in a half-hearted attempt to wake her up gently. She doesn’t move, still breathing in heavy deep sleep. _“Erica,”_ he says a little louder, and he manages to get his eyes half-open to look at her. There’s a line on her forehead and her lips are turned down in a slight frown. She squirms against him, sliding a hand over his side and pulling him in closer.

“Wake up, Erica,” Isaac whispers.

As his mind starts to wake up, so does the rest of his body. The closeness and softness of Erica next to him is sending tingles down his stomach to his groin. They’re naked because they’d meant to have sex before passing out, as a comfort after fighting ruthless hunters through a long night, but sleep had grabbed at them almost immediately after hitting the mattress. Now his body is reminding him of the promise, though all he really wants right now is lunch.

He struggles again to get free of Erica’s grip, this time with more power behind the movements, and she shifts and whines, her fingers curling against his back, her face burrowing into his chest.

_“Isaac,”_ she complains, shaking her head against him. “Stop moving.”

“I’m _hungry_ ,” he says, and his stomach growls at that exact moment in agreement.

Erica opens one eye and peeks down at his tummy, then notices—

“Hungry for what, though?” she murmurs, sneaking one hand down his abdomen and wrapping her fingers around him, lazily and slowly pumping his cock.

“Oh _god_ —” His hips jerk automatically, thrusting into her hand, and she grins wide and leans up to press a wet and sloppy kiss under his chin.

“Yes?” she asks, and he nods, mouth half-open, eyes glazed over, knowing what she wants.

She has a soft touch when she wants to, but that’s not really her style. Erica shifts her weight back from him and then swings a leg over both of his, pushing him onto his back and rolling on top of him. He can feel the wet heat of her cunt as she rests for a second sitting on his stomach, and his cock throbs with an ache for contact. Erica smiles down at him, all sweetness and companionship, and then lifts her hips and reaches a hand down to guide him inside her. She slides down onto him and then stays there, him rooted in her and reveling in the warm heat of her, her placing kisses on his chest and running her fingernails down his sides, leaving scratches that will heal in just a few seconds.

Isaac gasps and feels dizzy, head light from hunger and thirst and all the blood having rushed out of it and gone elsewhere, and when she starts to rock up and down on him his vision goes spotty and he draws in deep breaths and settles his hands on her waist to anchor himself back to the real world.

Erica likes being in total control, and Isaac likes letting her do what she wants, likes surrendering himself to her touches and desires, and this is no different. She pulls one hand back from where it’s been braced on his chest and reaches down to rub her clit in time with every quick up-down pull of her hips. He watches the ecstasy growing on her face, needing to keep his eyes open so he can see her even as his own orgasm pools and spirals closer and closer. Isaac holds back, resisting the need to come, making himself wait until she has, because this is about sharing and love and togetherness, not about just getting off.

When her breathing turns into broken off pants, he knows she’s close, and he doesn’t do anything that will break her rhythm, just keeps thrusting his hips up in time with her own motions and focusing on the keyed-up shaking of her body on top of him as she edges closer—closer—and then cries out and opens her eyes wide, staring up at the ceiling blindly, one hand digging fingers into his side and the other still rubbing her clit, pulling herself all the way through her orgasm. When he knows she’s near the end he finally lets himself come, pushing up in one, two, three quick jerks and then releasing inside her, biting his lip to keep from whimpering.

They both still, smiling at each other, and Erica leans down, her hair falling all around his face. She kisses him softly on the corner of his mouth, all dry lips and hot breath, and he wraps his arms around her back. He pulls out of her and then she collapses down on top of him, smooshing her face against his cheek and slipping off to his side, just one leg draped over him and one arm resting on his sweat-chilled chest. She hums in satisfaction and he reaches a hand to hers and twines their fingers together.

It’s nice, it’s so nice, and it’s so uncomplicated and easy because it’s pack, and it’s bonding in the deepest way, and he trusts her so innately and she him. Isaac loves the feeling, loves the warmth that spreads out inside him and fills up every inch of his skin till he’s almost vibrating with a glowy happiness.

But then his stomach growls again, louder this time, and Erica laughs and shoves at him a little.

“Go get food,” she says, and then when he starts to pull away from her, she adds, “and bring some back for me, too.”

He kisses her on the cheek, slips on underwear, and heads downstairs to the kitchen.

-

Isaac stands in front of an open cupboard, scrutinizing various cans of food, looking for the right combination for a post-battle, post-sex, midsummer lunch. He tentatively pulls a can of peaches out and then his fingers hover for several seconds before he also grabs peanut butter and a box of saltine crackers. It’s not much, but it’ll be enough for him and Erica.

He leans over to open the drawer where Derek keeps the can openers (dozens of them, like he goes to garage sales and buys every one he finds, making Isaac wonder if Derek wants a pack that big, if each can opener is for a different member of the future family he’s been trying to build). Just as he’s pulling one out, he hears voices upstairs and freezes, listening.

There’s Erica’s voice, soft and gentle and rounded out with giggles, and then Isaac hears Boyd’s deep voice responding, just as gentle back. He hears the mattress creak and knows Boyd’s crawled onto it and Isaac feels a knot clench and pull in his stomach, trying not to let his shoulders stoop too obviously, trying not to let his sigh be too loud as he resigns himself to another day of third wheeling. It shouldn’t feel like that, because they’re all packmates and he’s slept with them more times than he can count, but there’s still a connection there between Erica and Boyd that he’s not a part of. He doesn’t know fully how to explain the intense pang of disappointment that Erica-and-Boyd hasn’t and won’t ever become Erica-and-Isaac-and-Boyd. He plays with them, but he’s not as important to them as he wants. And despite himself, they’re not as important to him as he wishes they were, too. Sometimes, when the three of them are lying together, skin pressed against skin, heat and murmurs and gentle touches—sometimes, he can almost believe he’s happy with them, and that they’re happy to have him with them, too. But other times—other times it’s so clear that they’re in love and he’s not that he hides away in a dark corner of the house reading until he forgets why he’s so upset.

Isaac stands back up straight and sets the can opener on the lip of the can of peaches, twisting the crank until the lid is cut all the way open. He’s about to pick up the peaches, peanut butter, and crackers and head reluctantly back upstairs when he hears feet crunching on the gravel outside. He tenses and tilts his head to the side, listening intently, and he hears Boyd and Erica stop talking as they, presumably, do the same.

But then Isaac catches the familiar scent of Scott and relaxes. It’s a pleasant surprise. Scott hadn’t come by the Hale house all that often until Stiles started spending most of his time in bed with Derek, but now he stops by a few times a week looking for Stiles.

“He doesn’t answer his phone as much,” Scott had explained to Isaac a few weeks earlier, blushing a little and not meeting Isaac’s eyes. “I just like to know where he is.” _Ever since Gerard kidnapped him_ —the words had hung unspoken between them, but Isaac understood Scott perfectly.

Now Scott lets himself into the house and Isaac listens to his careful footsteps on the wood floors as he avoids the weak spots in the floorboards.

“Hey, Isaac,” Scott says, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen.

Isaac feels a little self-conscious in only boxer-briefs, but not very. A couple weeks ago Scott walked in on him curled up nude sleeping next to Boyd when they mutually decided sleeping without clothes was better than sleeping with clothes.

“Hi,” Isaac says, setting the food he’d picked up back down on the counter. Scott being here was a perfect excuse not to go up and pitifully watch from the corner of the bed as Boyd and Erica loved up on each other.

“Is Stiles around?” Scott asks casually.

Isaac shakes his head and Scott frowns, but doesn’t look too upset. 

“Derek isn’t here either,” Isaac adds, grinning suggestively. Scott blushes.

“So they’re..”

“Probably fucking somewhere creative in the woods, yeah.”

There’s a long pause between them. Isaac sticks a couple fingers into the can of peaches and pulls a piece out, then sucks it down. It’s good—not like fresh peaches in the summertime, something Isaac remembers from days before Camden and his mom died and his dad got angry, but still good. Isaac notices a drip of juice running down his index finger and catches it with his tongue, then looks up and notices Scott watching him with a curious look on his face. Isaac’s raises an eyebrow at Scott inquiringly.

Scott just shakes himself and asks,

“Is that your lunch?”

Isaac smiles ruefully and nods. “Best I could find.”

“Dude,” Scott says softly, his voice filled with disapproval.

“It’s not bad,” Isaac says, eating another piece. Scott frowns at him and Isaac rolls his eyes, dipping his fingers back into the can and picking another piece out. He holds it out to Scott and says, “Try it.”

Scott eyes the peach intensely for a second, like deciding to eat it is the most complicated decision he’s ever made, but then he shrugs and dips his head down, sucking the peach right out of Isaac’s hand. His eyes dart up at Isaac’s, wide and brown and asking belatedly if this is okay. For the briefest of seconds, Isaac is conscious of Scott’s lips sucking tight around his fingers—a warm wet suction that sends a pulse unwittingly down his back, making his toes curl. Yeah, it’s okay. It’s okay.

Scott straightens back up and licks his lips, and Isaac focuses in, distracted at remembering the feel of Scott’s mouth on him just a moment ago. Isaac furrows his brow and stares at Scott in confusion.

“What?” Scott asks, noticing Isaac’s stare. “Do I have something on my face?”

“No,” Isaac replies quickly, frowning a little.

Scott narrows his eyes infinitesimally and then points at Isaac. “You’re coming to my house.”

“What—why—”

“My mom made lasagna last night,” Scott replies cheerfully. “There’s leftovers. A _real_ lunch. C’mon.”

Isaac’s mouth drops open. “Oh, no, that’s okay, I couldn’t—”

“Isaac. This isn’t real food,” Scott says dismissively, waving his hand at the peaches. “I’m a werewolf too, okay? I know how hungry we get.”

At the mention of being a werewolf, something pings in the back of Isaac’s head. _Pack_ , he whispers to himself. _He’s pack._

_He’s not pack, not really_ , Isaac argues internally, but he’s weak. Being around Scott is like an addiction to Isaac, even though he knows Scott doesn’t feel remotely the same way. Isaac remembers every moment with Scott when they were fighting Gerard together—every smile, every look, every touch. It means a lot to him, even though he’s not sure why. Maybe it’s just—to Isaac, Scott is the human personification of sunshine. If the mark he leaves on Isaac shines brightly, it’s not purposeful, and it doesn’t mean much to Scott, who leaves light behind everywhere he goes. Isaac’s left no mark, no blemish on Scott. Scott’s been nice to him—but that’s Scott’s _modus operandi_. There’s no other way for Scott to be. Isaac can’t get enough of that.

Scott wants him to come over. And Isaac is physically incapable of saying no.

“All right, if you insist.”

“I do insist,” Scott says, smiling broadly.

There’s a short pause, and then Isaac looks down at himself and colors. “Oh—I just have to—uh, go put clothes on—”

Scott laughs. “Okay, I’ll wait here.”

Isaac ducks his head, grinning nervously, then scoops up the rest of the food to take to Erica and Boyd. _They’re_ not invited for lasagna, something that shouldn’t fill him with a special glee, but does anyway.

Upstairs, Erica is in Boyd’s lap, her legs wrapped around his middle, her arms around his neck. They’re just sitting like that, talking close and quiet to each other, and Isaac feels again a jabbing pain of _unwantedness_. He shrugs it off, though, and then smiles widely thinking about going over to Scott’s for lasagna.

“Look at you, all a-flutter,” Erica teases from the mattress.

“What?” Isaac asks, bringing the food over to them and then picking his jeans up from where they’re crumpled on the floor.

“You’re excited for your _date_ ,” she whispers, winking. Isaac blushes, despite himself.

“It’s not a date,” he says defensively, embarrassingly aware that Scott can hear every word from downstairs. “It’s just lasagna.”

“Whatever,” Erica says, twisting in Boyd’s lap and opening up the peanut butter. She sticks her finger in and scoops up a glob, then sucks it off slowly, playing it up. Isaac watches Boyd watching her, his expression enamored.

Isaac pulls on his jeans, then sits down and puts his sneakers on. “What are you two doing today?”

Boyd and Erica share a look and laugh at once. “Probably just each other,” Erica says, her grin wicked.

Isaac doesn’t respond, just finishes tying his shoes and then grabs his shirt off the floor. “I’ll see you later then.”

“Have fun,” Erica calls after him as he makes his way back down stairs. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“That’s a short list!” Isaac shouts back over his shoulder, feeling itchy and weird for some reason. He doesn’t like Erica making him look bad in front of Scott.

He’s being dumb, though, because Scott just smiles dopily at him when he gets back to the kitchen and nods his head toward the front door. They head out.

-

They walk in a not-quite-comfortable silence for several minutes before Scott asks, abruptly, “Can werewolves have more than one mate?”

Isaac flushes but Scott’s not looking at him so it’s okay. He shrugs and replies, “I guess, if everyone’s into it.”

Scott almost stumbles, but he catches himself and looks at Isaac with his face scrunched up in confusion. “Wait, what?”

“What?”

“What are you talking about?” Scott asks.

“What are _you_ talking about?” Isaac asks back, raising an eyebrow.

Scott lets out a noise of frustration and says loudly, waving his arms, “I want to know if a werewolf can mate with one person and then they break up for stupid reasons that don’t make sense and she never calls and even though he _knows_ they’re meant to be together it’s just like, am I supposed to wait forever because what if I like someone else… or something?”

Isaac pauses, replays what Scott said in his mind, replays it again, and laughs. “I did not follow any of that.”

Scott sighs. “Story of my life.”

There’s a beat, and then Isaac says, quietly, “I’m guessing you’re talking about Allison?”

“I _love_ her,” Scott says back, immediately. “And I told her we were going to be together again even though she told me not to wait for her, and I want to be with her.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Scott darts a look at Isaac and then gnaws at his lip before saying, “I don’t know. It’s been two months and I… she never called me, once, and whenever I went over, her dad said she didn’t want to see me, and she keeps the window locked all the time and…”

Isaac chuckles. “You’re sounding a little stalker.”

Scott snorts. “I guess I am. I wish we could go back to how it used to be.” He sounds so sad, so world-weary, that for a moment Isaac just wants to wrap him up in his arms and press a kiss against the side of his head, but he can’t do that, so instead he says,

“I don’t think you _can_ go back to how it used to be. Things happened. You and Allison both changed… a lot. I mean, she tried to kill me, for one,” Isaac says, and he tries not to sound bitter but probably fails a little, because Scott winces.

“She… did, yeah… I… it must sound crazy to you that I could even still like her, huh?”

“A little,” Isaac replies gruffly, but he understands what it’s like loving people even if they hurt you.

They walk quietly again for a few minutes until Scott suddenly asks, “What did you mean about—about ‘if everyone’s into it’?”

Isaac laughs. “I dunno if you noticed, but we’re not all strictly monogamous in the pack.”

To his credit, Scott doesn’t look shocked, just confused. “I thought that was just … sex.”

“Nothing is _just_ sex with the pack, Scott,” Isaac says, turning a corner of his mouth down. “There’s … there’s a deeper bond… I mean, we all know each other, inside and out.”

“What about the mates thing, though? Like… isn’t that two people?”

“With Derek and Stiles, Boyd and Erica, it’s two. But I haven’t seen any guidebooks about werewolf mating practices … I dunno why it _couldn’t_ be three, or four, or whatever makes everyone happy.”

Scott contemplates it for a long time, then finally asks, “Is that what _you_ want? A—a threesome?”

Isaac sighs, trying to come up with a funny answer to what should be a funny question but for some reason really, really isn’t. He can’t, so he says, “I don’t know what I want.”

Scott makes a small noise, something between confusion and frustration. “Isaac… are you happy?”

“I…” Isaac has to think about it. “I guess… I’m happy. Yeah. I feel good more than I feel bad. That’s happiness, right?”

“Sort of,” Scott says, and Isaac hates the note of pity in his voice. “Do you ever feel like… like your heart is _so full_ and it’s filling up your whole body with, like… um… I don’t know how to describe it...”

“With sunshine?” Isaac suggests offhand.

Scott looks at him, smiling, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Yeah, like that. Like you’re filled up with sunshine.”

It feels like the end of the conversation and Isaac thinks he can get away with not answering the question, because no—no, he almost never feels like that outside of post-orgasm moments with the pack. Otherwise, it’s usually been because of something Scott’s done. That’s not something he wants to admit out loud. 

They walk in silence the rest of the way to Scott’s house. When they reach his front porch, Isaac tenses and pulls back. He can smell and hear Melissa inside, and he wonders if he’s still invited to come in if she’s here. Scott just looks at him oddly and then opens his front door, jerking his head.

“C’mon inside.”

Isaac follows with his head down, his shoulders hunching, trying to make himself smaller. Scott heads right into the kitchen, where Melissa’s just setting a kettle of water on the stove to boil. Isaac hovers in the doorway, trying not to be noticeable, but she looks up and smiles when she sees him.

“Oh hey, Isaac,” she says easily. “Do you want some tea?”

He’s momentarily taken off-guard by the question, had been expecting her to ask something more like _what the hell are you doing here?_. He offers her a nervous smile and shakes his head. “N-no, that’s all right.”

“You sure? I’m boiling the water anyway, it won’t be any trouble.”

Isaac watches as Scott navigates around her, opening the fridge and pulling out the dish of lasagna, covered in tin foil. She shifts to give him a little more space, one of her hands casually ruffling his hair when he opens the drawer next to her to pull out forks. Isaac feels an ache inside his chest at being reminded not all parents hate their children, and then his heart jumps when he realizes she’s still looking at him expectantly.

“Oh—well, um—”

“My mom makes good tea _and_ good lasagna,” Scott tells Isaac, moving to the cupboard against the other wall and pulling out plates.

Isaac grins at him and then says to Melissa, “I—sure, if it’s not too much trouble. I’ll have some.”

“Great,” she says, her smile widening. “You look like an herbal kind of guy, am I right?”

He blushes. “I don’t really know. I’ve never actually _had_ a cup of tea.”

Scott swivels his head and stares at Isaac. “You’ve never. Had. A cup of tea.”

Isaac shrugs. “I think my mom used to drink it but my dad liked coffee.”

Melissa and Scott stop what they’re doing for the briefest of moments, sharing a look Isaac can’t read, and then they start up again: Scott portioning the lasagna out onto the plates, Melissa pulling a mug out of a cupboard. They move in synch around each other, orbiting and sliding in an intricate ballet around the kitchen—Melissa moving towards the pantry and pulling out boxes of tea, Scott twisting around her to stick the first plate of lasagna into the microwave.

Isaac feels this tight sensation in his chest and for some stupid reason there are tears welling up in his eyes. He turns away slightly, not wanting them to notice him quietly trying to calm down, rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes, but even though Scott isn’t always perceptive of facts, he’s perceptive of people, and it’s clear he gets it from Melissa when Isaac suddenly feels her small soft hand wind around his wrist and she pulls him into a full-body hug.

“Hey, it’s all right,” she murmurs into his ear, and Isaac thinks she must be on her tiptoes to reach him. It’s such a small gesture, but this little act of stretching herself for his benefit means more to him than he could ever admit.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because his default is to be sorry.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she says, her arms still wrapped around him.

Isaac opens his eyes and sees Scott hovering a few feet away, looking anxious. He smiles encouragingly when he sees Isaac looking at him, and Isaac tries to smile back. It’s a weird moment, and he wants it to end as much as he wants it to keep going forever. He’s not touch-starved anymore, not with his packmates around him all the time, but there’s something different about a mother’s hug. Even if it’s not his own mother. He hasn’t had one of these for almost seven years, since he was ten and his mom—stopped living, just a few months after Camden was killed in action. She couldn’t survive without her son, the one who mattered. Isaac wished he could have been better for her and been a reason for her to stay. And if his dad had blamed Isaac for not being good enough, it was only natural. Isaac blamed himself too.

The kettle whistling is what finally breaks them apart, Melissa pulling back reluctantly and smoothing the curls down on one side of his head, her hand resting on his cheek for an extra second as she smiles up at him before walking away toward the stove. He folds up into himself again in her absence, hugs his arms to his chest and lets his shoulders droop, his head fall. He sees out of the corner of his eye Scott leaning forward, and he wonders if the McCalls can stop themselves from hugging broken teenagers and then he wonders at himself for how much he wishes Scott _would_ put his arms around him and wrap him in warmth, but the microwave beeps and Scott tilts and heads for that instead.

Isaac watches Scott pull the plate out, pulling the lasagna apart a little to make sure it’s heated all the way through, then nodding to himself before setting the plate on the kitchen table.

“Here, Isaac,” he says, his voice nothing but open and kind, and he hands Isaac a fork that forces Isaac to unfurl his arms from his chest and reach out for it.

“Thanks,” Isaac says, and he sits in the chair in front of the lasagna and realizes very suddenly how hungry he really is. He digs into the lasagna and doesn’t come up for air until Scott’s setting his own plate of heated lasagna across from Isaac. He sits and takes a bite, smiling at Isaac with his mouth shut while he chews.

Melissa comes up behind them and places two mugs of tea next to them, both a smooth golden-yellow color. She gently lays a hand on Isaac’s back and says to Isaac, “It’s chamomile. I put some honey in for you, but if you want more, Scott knows where it is.” 

“Chamomile…” The name sounds familiar to Isaac. He glances up at her. “Doesn’t that make you sleepy?”

She laughs. “It can, I guess. But it’s a Saturday afternoon in the middle of July. Naps are pretty much par for the course.”

“Thank you,” Isaac says, and he tries to put more weight behind it than just _for the tea_. “Oh, and the lasagna is really, really good.”

“Glad to hear it,” she says to him, and ruffles his hair playfully, just like he’d seen her do to Scott earlier. He’s not sure how to react, so he just eats another bite of lasagna. “Scott, if I don’t see you later, remember to finish your homework, okay?”

“Okaaay,” Scott mumbles through his lasagna.

“I’ll be upstairs reading,” she tells him. “I’ll _know_ if you play video games.”

“I _won’t.”_

“Good. Isaac, keep him honest, please.”

Isaac turns and grins at her, and she smiles back at him before taking her tea out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

“Why do you have homework?” Isaac asks Scott once the sound of her footsteps has retreated into her bedroom.

Scott sighs and finishes chewing a bite of lasagna. “I’m taking a few summer classes to try to get my grades up so I don’t get held back.”

Isaac blinks. “You… you really did that bad?”

Scott shakes his head and stares at his plate. “If I don’t raise my GPA for sophomore year I’ll have to repeat it and be a year behind all of you and… god, I don’t know.”

“Shit, sorry, man.”

“It’s not so bad, I mean, it’s been a quiet summer—” and Isaac knows he means in terms of werewolf problems because even if Derek is getting them into scrapes with hunters, they’re not big enough to bring Scott in on—“and Allison isn’t … you know. And Stiles hasn’t been around much either because of … you know.”

Isaac feels suddenly, shockingly bad for Scott. He realizes maybe Scott hadn’t been coming around to the Hale house because he’d felt unwanted, not because he didn’t want to.

“Hey, I—”

Scott cuts him off. “It’s just, I’m doing better at geometry and biology but then I get to the English stuff and it’s… I don’t even understand most of it, you know?”

“What are you doing in there right now?” Isaac asks.

“We’re reading _Shakespeare,”_ Scott replies, saying the name like it’s a particularly disgusting slug that he’s just found stuck to his shoe.

Isaac laughs. “He’s not so bad… what play are you reading?”

“Are you good at English?” Scott asks, eyes widening a little. Then he realizes how that might have sounded and waves his hands frantically. “I don’t mean—I don’t mean you _wouldn’t_ be but, could you tutor me, man? Stiles was helping with the other stuff but he said he couldn’t really focus on Shakespeare and I just…”

“Scott, it’s okay... I’ve never been good at writing essays or whatever but yeah, I like reading,” Isaac says, remembering long afternoons spent in his room trying to stay physically and mentally away from his dad. “I could probably help you.”

“Oh man, that would be so awesome,” Scott says, finishing his lasagna in double-time and getting up, pushing his chair back with a squeak and running into the other room. He comes back in two seconds with a huge book, which Isaac recognizes as the anthology they used in English.

He sits in the chair next to Isaac and opens the book where he has it bookmarked with a ragged slip of paper. Isaac pointedly looks away when he notices how many times the name “Allison” has been doodled on it. Then Scott flips the page and points.

“This one. ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’”

Isaac’s face splits into a smile. “You’re reading this one? I love this one. This is actually my favorite by Shakespeare.”

Scott grins back. “Really? So you can help me?”

“Yeah, I can totally help you. What are you… like what parts are you having problems with?”

Scott blows out a breath and sits back in his chair. He shrugs and says, “Everything, I guess. I don’t understand it. I don’t know what’s going on or who’s doing what… it’s like written in another language.”

Isaac laughs. “It is not, it’s still English.” He picks up his cup of tea and takes a sip. “That’s really good,” he says, surprised, looking down at the chamomile.

Scott nods. “My mom makes everything good.”

“Yeah,” Isaac says softly, taking another sip. “Okay, so… how about I summarize what’s going on at the beginning, and then we’ll read some of it out loud and see if it makes more sense?”

“Sure, that sounds good,” Scott says.

Isaac sits back and thinks for a few seconds, then begins, “So there’s this girl, named Hermia, and two guys are totally in love with her.”

“That’s… Lysander and Demetrius?” Scott supplies, looking at the character list in the book.

“Yeah, Lysander and Demetrius both want to marry Hermia. And she’s in love with Lysander.”

“So Lysander gets to marry her.”

“Well, you’d think, but Hermia’s father doesn’t like Lysander, and he wants her to marry Demetrius.”

Scott’s quiet for a second, his face drawn together seriously. Then he murmurs, “Yeah, it’s tough when her father doesn’t like you.”

Isaac sucks in a quick breath and keeps talking, to change the subject. “So Hermia and Lysander run away to get married secretly.”

“Okay… so wait, who’s Helena?”

“Okay, so Helena is Hermia’s best friend, and _she’s_ in love with Demetrius.”

“Why doesn’t Demetrius just get with Helena then?” Scott asks.

“Well, they used to date but he changed his mind and decided to go after Hermia.”

“That’s a dick move,” Scott says, suddenly angry. “That’s like Jackson dumping Lydia to go after Allison when—er--I mean—when… sorry.”

Isaac inclines his head toward Scott and bumps their shoulders. “It _was_ a dick move.”

Scott looks at him swiftly, a smile creeping onto his face. “Yeah?”

Isaac tries not to focus on how their faces are just inches apart and instead just nods and nervously glances back at the book. “So there’s all that and then there’s fairies.”

“Right…”

“Oberon and Titania and Puck,” Isaac reminds him.

“I don’t think I got that far,” Scott confesses, grinning apologetically.

Isaac laughs. “Okay… how about we read it out loud from the beginning then? Seriously, it’s a play, it’s meant to be read out loud—it’ll make more sense, I promise.”

Scott sighs heavily but nods. “Yeah, I gotta get this. We have a test on Friday.”

Isaac flips to the beginning of the play and gives Scott a shy smile before he starts to read out loud:

_“‘Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour draws on apace. Four happy days bring in another moon…’”_

A couple hours later, Isaac’s getting sleepy and his voice is hoarse, but he and Scott have read through the first three acts, and it seems like Scott’s getting it. Every once in a while he stops Isaac and asks him to explain a line or a scene, but he’s doing it less and less as they get farther along.

“So Puck took the spell off Lysander?” Scott asks.

“Yeah, he uses the herb as an antidote to the purple flowers that made him fall in love with Helena.”

“But what about Demetrius?”

Isaac hesitates. “Well… he’s still under the influence of the flowers at the end of the play, technically. So he’ll still be in love with Helena, while Lysander and Hermia are back together.”

Scott hums and bites his lip. “That doesn’t seem fair to Demetrius.”

“I thought you said he was a dick,” Isaac teases.

“He _is_ a dick, but sometimes you can’t help who you fall in love with, I guess,” Scott says. “Now he’s gonna be stuck with the flowers messing up his head forever.”

Isaac considers it. “You know, maybe he just needed the push.”

“What do you mean?”

“He had been with Helena before, but decided to go after Hermia instead. Helena’s still in love with him, so he can’t be _that_ bad… it makes me wonder if maybe he was just afraid.” Isaac furrows his brow and reads over the line _“And every man should take his own.”_

“Afraid of what?” Scott asks, and Isaac thinks about it for a few seconds before replying slowly,

“Of being _really_ in love with someone. Hermia’s dad liked him so it was easy for him to just say, ‘Well, I’ll marry her then,’ but with Helena it was all _him_ … there was no incentive to be with her besides just _wanting_ to be with her. Maybe the flowers for Demetrius don’t mess him up. Maybe they fix him.” Isaac feels a flush on his cheeks and he stares down at the book, stupidly unable to stop talking. “Sometimes it’s hard to let yourself love someone because you want to, not because other people want you to. You don’t think you’re allowed to feel that way.”

He can feel Scott looking at him and his heart speeds up, his palms growing clammy. He wants to shrink up and shrivel away.

“Isaac…” Scott says finally, his voice low and unsure.

“I should go,” Isaac says, pushing his chair back, running a shaking hand through his hair. “I’m sure you can handle the rest of this on your own and, and I should go—”

“No.”

“I—what?” Isaac risks looking at Scott’s face, and he’s got that _Scott_ look, that unbelievably stupidly earnest and open expression that Isaac has no idea how to respond to.

“Stay,” Scott says. “We can take a break and watch a movie or something… but stay.”

Isaac wets his lips and blinks rapidly several times. “Your mom said you had to do homework.”

“I’ve been— _we’ve_ been _doing_ homework for two hours, come on, she’ll understand. _Everyone_ needs a break,” Scott insists, and Isaac wonders if he’s talking about himself or Isaac.

“I…”

“Come on,” Scott murmurs, then slides his hand around Isaac’s wrist, stands and pulls him up. Isaac feels compelled to go with him. He’s so used to doing what people ask of him, what the pack asks of him, that he can’t find it in him to pull away.

Scott leads him into the living room and pushes him down gently on one end of the couch, then sits on the other. He picks up the remote and turns the TV on, putting the volume down quickly, saying apologetically to Isaac, “Mom’s probably sleeping before her shift later.”

“It’s okay,” Isaac says. “Werewolf hearing, you know.”

Scott grins back at him. “Yeah, I know.” Scott flips channels and pauses on AMC, which is showing _Friday the Thirteenth_ —the original one, with Kevin Bacon. He looks over at Isaac and raises his eyebrows. “Is this okay?”

“Isn’t this kind of cheesy?” Isaac asks.

“Yeah, but it’s also great,” Scott says. “Have you seen it?”

“No,” Isaac admits. He hasn’t seen a lot of movies.

“Then we’re _definitely_ watching it.”

For the first five minutes, Isaac is hyperaware of sharing a couch with Scott. There’s something different between them, a feeling that reminds Isaac of that night at the rave when Scott had told him _I don’t want you to get hurt._ At the time, Isaac had chalked that off to Scott feeling like he had to be responsible for everyone. It’s obvious Scott gets that caretaker vibe from his mom, Isaac thinks, after seeing them together tonight. But does being a caretaker extend to making your sort-of-friend-slash-English-tutor watch a movie with you after he awkwardly empathizes with a character in a Shakespeare play? Isaac wonders, then, if maybe Scott’s acting from the pack instinct that prompts Erica to cuddle him in bed or Boyd to play cards with him or Jackson to begrudgingly watch lacrosse games with him.

Deciding that Scott being nice to him is related to them both being werewolves and thus there being an underlying pack connection between them eases Isaac’s mind. He watches the movie and finds it’s surprisingly enjoyable in a really ridiculous way, but he’s still sleepy and despite an interest in finding out who the killer is, he can’t keep his eyes open past the strip Monopoly scene.

_Isaac dreams and in his dream he walks along the yellow sands on the banks of a wide river, passing people whose faces he doesn’t recognize. He follows a path up a dune that leads into a forest, thick and green with life, and he hears a strange song on the breeze. He chases the sound and sees the quick beat of the wings of a god as he sets loose an arrow toward the fleeing shape of a woman. Isaac watches the path of the arrow whip through the trees and land embedded at the base of a cluster of white flowers. He runs and watches as the petals of the flowers are flooded with an inky purple, and a drop of dew pulses and grows from the center of a flower head until they’re all dripping with it. Isaac knows this is the love potion Oberon spoke of, and he picks one of the flowers and holds it above his face, wanting to give himself that power—to love without burden, to love fully and wholly without incentive, with only his heart and soul—and he waits as a drop of dew slowly falls from the petal to his eye—and for a second he thinks it’s worked, thinks the tingling in his body is the beginning of love—_

_—But then there’s pain, terrible pain, spreading from his eye to his face to the rest of him, swiftly and sharply, and he looks down in horror at the flower he only now recognizes as wolfsbane—and he tries to run back the way he came, through the forest and out to the river to throw himself in the water and get the poison out of him, but he can’t find the way—he gets stuck pushing through thick trees and thickets and brambles and the pain is so intense, like his father’s hands tight around his wrists, shaking, shaking, Isaac’s shaking, and he’s screaming, and he’s so cold, he’s shaking—_

He wakes suddenly, flailing his arms out and kicking his legs to get away, still feeling the echo of pain in his body but also feeling the very real touch of someone’s hands around his wrists, holding him down onto—onto the couch, onto Scott’s couch. Isaac opens his eyes slowly as he stops struggling, and he realizes Scott’s sitting on top of him—well, sitting with his hands on Isaac’s wrists and his legs on either side of Isaac’s hips. Isaac stares up at him in confusion, seeing Scott’s worried, torn face and not understanding why he looks that way.

“Are you okay?” Scott asks him, and Isaac shakes his head, then frowns, and nods slowly.

“I’m—yeah, I’m—what are you—”

“You were having a—a nightmare or something, it was really bad, you were shaking and—and crying…”

Isaac realizes suddenly his face is wet with tears, and he closes his eyes in embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” he says to Scott, going completely limp underneath him.

Scott sighs and shakes Isaac’s wrists a little. “Why are you always sorry! You didn’t do anything _wrong,_ I was just worried about you, and—”

“I’m sor—”

“Don’t _say that,”_ Scott growls, and then drops his face down to Isaac’s and kisses him hard, like he’s using his lips to silence Isaac. Isaac freezes and lets himself be kissed, and then there’s this strange moment when it turns from rough, bruising lips-against-lips to something gentler, softer, and Isaac finds himself kissing back, feeling Scott open his mouth with his tongue and explore carefully. It’s sweet and hot at the same time, and Isaac can’t get enough of it.

When Scott pulls away, Isaac instinctively leans his head up for more, then blushes. His eyes are still closed and he’s terrified to open them, to see what he knows will be abject horror on Scott’s face as he comprehends what he’s done. 

But then he feels a touch of something light and ticklish against his cheeks, and when Scott brushes a kiss against the corner of his mouth, he realizes he’s feeling Scott’s eyelashes, little butterfly kisses mixed in with the sweet warm ones Scott’s pressing into him. Isaac opens his eyes.

Scott’s face isn’t upset or horrified—he’s—he looks like he’s pleasantly surprised, like he’s come downstairs on Christmas morning to a larger stack of presents than he was expecting—and Isaac blinks up at him. Scott’s eyes are dark and round and so, so kind, always kind, and Isaac wonders fleetingly if this is just more McCall hospitality.

“Are you okay now?” Scott whispers to him, and Isaac giggles, despite himself.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he says, and waits for Scott to let him go, get off him, retreat to the other end of the couch, but instead Scott stays where he is. If anything, his grip on Isaac’s wrists tightens.

“What were you dreaming about?” Scott asks, and Isaac’s baffled that he’s asking him such trivial questions when just a second ago they were _kissing_ and Scott’s still straddling him, pressing against him in places that— _well,_ make Isaac wonder how far Scott’s hospitality will go.

“I, uh—” Isaac tries not to think about the taste of Scott’s lips, but he’s failing.

“Was it about Jason?” Scott asks, and _that_ distracts Isaac.

“Huh?” he asks, his mouth gaping open in confusion.

“You know, from the movie,” Scott says, jerking his head at the television set, which is now off.

“Oh,” Isaac says. “Is that who the killer was?”

“Well, no,” Scott says. “But I think you slept through the end of the movie. Don’t want to spoil it for you.”

“Oh.”

“So it wasn’t Jason?” Scott asks.

“No, it was—” Isaac sighs and looks away before saying, “It was about the flowers in the play.”

Scott shifts a little as surprise registers through him. “The love flowers?”

“Yeah,” Isaac says.

“You were… having a nightmare about them?”

Isaac shakes his head. “They turned into wolfsbane.”

“Oh,” Scott says, shifting again, and Isaac wishes he would stop, because he’s definitely half-hard and Scott’s going to notice if he doesn’t get off him soon. “Is it about—was it because of the, uh, the thing with Demetrius? The idea of falling in love being—um, being scary?” Scott asks, and Isaac stares at him, slack-jawed, amazed that he made the connection.

Because Scott is an idiot, except when he’s not.

Or no, he’s not an idiot, he’s just naïve about some things, but in a purposeful way, because Scott ignores all the bad things in the world and focuses on the good ones, and he’s smart about the good ones—about making Isaac feel better, for example.

“I—yeah,” Isaac finally says. “Yeah, I guess it was about that.”

Scott sighs, long and sweetly, and Isaac doesn’t understand, and then Scott murmurs, “Oh, Isaac,” and leans down and kisses him again.

Isaac can’t help the _pound-pound-pound_ of his heart in his chest, and he likes that Scott can probably hear it and know that he’s the cause of it. When Scott slips his tongue into Isaac’s mouth again, Isaac strains to kiss him back harder, and in his struggle he bucks his hips up underneath Scott’s, and immediately regrets it because Scott goes very still against him.

Isaac tries to find words to explain away the fact that he’s hard, but then his eyes flit like traitors to glance down at where their crotches are pressed together and he notices in something like total shock that there’s a bulge in Scott’s jeans and _he’s hard too._

Isaac whines, way back in his throat, and Scott kisses him at the place where his jaw meets his neck, and then Isaac is distracted by Scott mouthing down his neck, the hint of teeth making him gasp involuntarily. He almost doesn’t realize it when one of Scott’s hands lets go of his wrist and travels down their bodies, then flicks open the buttons and zippers on both their jeans. But then Scott’s sliding down against him, his free hand pushing his jeans down his hips and then tugging at Isaac’s, too. Isaac lifts his hips and Scott pulls his jeans down until the only thing between them are two thin layers of cotton boxer-briefs. Then his hand snakes up again and locks around Isaac’s wrist again, holding him down as if he’s afraid he’s going to disappear or something, and Isaac can’t believe Scott thinks he could ever leave him, _this,_ but maybe it’s because Scott’s been an island of a person all summer and now that he’s got someone he won’t—can’t—let them go. Whatever the reason for it Isaac loves it, loves feeling grounded and touched and wanted, and he arches up against Scott.

They both shudder, drawing in quick breaths, and their eyes lock. Isaac grins up at Scott and Scott grins back at him, because that hint of friction felt _great_ for both of them, and it’s only going to get better.

Carefully, Scott shifts until their cocks are lined up between the heat of their bodies, and then he kisses him on his cheek and rolls his hips down against Isaac, once, twice. Isaac strains against his hands on his wrists but not hard enough to break free, and rolls his hips up to match the rhythm Scott’s set. He almost feels his claws and fangs coming out, but Scott’s mumbles of affection against his ear stop him, make him stay human.

“You’re _so good,”_ Scott’s whispering to him, and Isaac whimpers at the words, twining his feet around Scott’s legs and then gasping at how good it feels to give Scott more room between his knees. Isaac shifts under Scott, wrapping his legs around Scott so his feet lock just under his ass, and Scott moans against Isaac’s throat and the rolling of his hips turns into thrusts, jerks of movement that he can’t help. It feels _amazing._

Isaac pushes up as Scott thrusts down and they pant into each other’s ears and lose control, rutting against each other with choked-off groans and half-stifled whines, and then Scott bites down on Isaac’s neck and Isaac cries out and comes, hard and sudden and edging on painful, and he licks up the edge of Scott’s jaw and sucks on the corner as he rolls through his orgasm. Scott’s thrusting in jagged, random patterns now, and then he pushes up one more time and stiffens, groaning heavy into Isaac’s ear, and ruts slowly against Isaac as he comes.

“Oh my god,” Scott gasps, and he collapses onto Isaac’s chest for several long, quiet seconds, then carefully undoes his fingers from around Isaac’s wrists and sits up on top of him, his hands resting on Isaac’s stomach.

They just look at each other, and then Scott cracks up. “Man, I did not expect that,” he says, and Isaac feels like a fist has curled around his heart and squeezed.

“Oh,” he says, licking his lips and looking down at Scott’s hands, twisted into his sweat-damp shirt. So it was just about physical pleasure—just about comforting him—exactly the same as him and Erica that morning. _Pack bonding_ , Isaac thinks bitterly. It physically pains him to lie to Scott and tell him reassuringly, “It’s—don’t worry, I don’t—it’s just sex.”

Scott looks down at him, his face twisted in confusion. “What? No, it’s not _just sex_.”

Isaac nods slowly. “…Because I’m pack.”

“What?”

Isaac cocks his head to the side and stares up at Scott. “It’s okay, I get it. We… we do that stuff all the time in the pack, like we talked about, it’s not… it doesn’t really mean anything.”

“No, Isaac!” Scott frowns and grabs at one of his hands. Instead of bracing his wrist again, he curls his fingers around Isaac’s until they’re holding hands. Scott runs his thumb lightly over the back of Isaac’s knuckles and murmurs, “It’s not _just sex_ because… because you’re _you.”_

Isaac sits up abruptly from underneath Scott, making him topple backward onto the other end of the couch. “What do you mean?” he asks Scott in a hushed voice, holding very still and ducking his head, as if he’s talking to an animal he doesn’t want to spook.

Scott grins and blushes, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing away. “I… I like you.”

Isaac gapes at him. “You—you what?”

“I like you,” Scott says again, and Isaac blinks several times, trying to comprehend it.

“But— _why?”_

Scott hums, screwing his face up and thinking hard. He shifts, pulling his shoulders up and letting them fall, then scratching his chin. “You know when we were talking earlier, in the woods?”

“About—um, polyamory?” Isaac asks cautiously.

“No!” Scott laughs, a gentle, sweet sound that sets Isaac a little more at ease. “About happiness.”

“Oh,” Isaac says. “Yeah.”

Scott tilts his head to the side and looks at Isaac, earnestness written over every inch of his face. “Well, you make me feel happy. Or like—I’m happier when you’re around. I don’t know, it’s easy, being with you. You’re just nice and you don’t make me feel bad about stuff like other people do, even on accident … and—and—I dunno, man, you just… I just like you.”

Isaac says without thinking, “But _you’re_ like sunshine, not me.”

Scott looks stunned, and then barks out a laugh. “What? I’m like—I’m like sunshine?”

Isaac blushes and looks down. “Yeah… you know.”

Scott’s quiet for a second, and then he says slowly, _“‘Like you’re filled up with sunshine.’”_ Isaac looks up, and Scott nods and keeps going: “That’s what you said before—that—that being happy is like you’re filled up with sunshine. Do I—do I make you feel like that?” He leans forward until he’s on his hands and knees in front of Isaac on the couch, their faces just a couple feet apart. “Do I make you happy?”

Isaac snorts and pushes at Scott playfully, trying to come off as casual. “Yeah, you dork.”

But Scott just grabs his arms and doesn’t let go, and there’s this moment where he’s slightly off balance and Isaac’s not sure if he’s going to fall backward or forward, and then Isaac leans his arms toward his body a little bit and Scott follows along, toppling between his legs and landing with his face buried in Isaac’s chest, laughing.

“Ugh!” Scott mumbles into Isaac’s shirt. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“What?”

“I just always figured you didn’t like me as much as I liked you,” Scott says, pressing his forehead hard against Isaac’s stomach.

Isaac lets out a noise of protest. “But you were _straight._ And in love with Allison! And you didn’t want to be in the pack. How was I supposed to know anything?”

Scott giggles. “I dunno, I guess I thought it would just _happen._ With Allison it just happened.”

Isaac freezes under Scott and gently lifts his face up to look at him in the eye. “Do you still love her? The way you were talking earlier…”

Scott sighs and groans, his face dropping back down into Isaac’s stomach. He says, muffled, “I… I do still… I still have feelings for her. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have feelings for you too.”

“Okay… but what about the other part?”

“The me being straight part,” Scott says, and it’s a statement, not a question. Isaac waits and Scott continues, “I dunno, it’s, like… I never used to think about guys that way, but now it’s just… it’s all this werewolf stuff, all the horrible stuff, how bad things _can_ be and how nice it is when they aren’t… made me realize whether it’s a guy or a girl I like, it doesn’t matter, it’s just… I like a person, and that’s that. Or anyway, I like _you._ I like you a lot.”

“Well, okay…” Isaac’s looks down at Scott’s head on his stomach and of their own accord, his fingers reach for Scott’s hair, tentatively brushing it down and then when Scott makes a muffled _mmph_ noise, carding through and scratching gently. “So now what?” Isaac asks almost absently, mesmerized by the feel of a warm Scott pressed into him. He wonders how loud his heartbeat, fluttering and nervous, sounds to Scott right now.

“Mm, you could keep doing that,” Scott mumbles, boneless on top of Isaac.

Isaac chuckles but keeps working his fingers through Scott’s hair, totally relaxed.

“What time is it?” he asks Scott. The house seems so quiet.

“I dunno, like three I think,” Scott murmurs, his voice sleepy. Isaac’s fingers still against him.

“Three—three in the morning?”

“You slept— _ohh_ —a long time,” Scott works out, a yawn breaking his sentence up. “Mom went to work at eleven.”

“Wow,” Isaac says, but he starts scratching again. He thinks Scott is almost asleep when suddenly Isaac’s stomach lets out a strangled gurgle. Scott starts awake, lifting his head off Isaac’s stomach.

“You hungry?” he asks, looking up at Isaac with a lopsided grin.

“I dunno, I guess,” Isaac says, starting to feel a few pangs of hunger.

_“Hmmm,”_ Scott replies, and pushes himself up. He looks down at his own stomach questioningly, then says, “I think I am too.”

“More leftover lasagna?” Isaac asks hopefully.

But Scott shakes his head. “We ate the last of it.” He furrows his brow and thinks for a second, then widens his eyes and says, “Peanut butter and jelly?”

Isaac laughs. “Okay.” It sounds good, but more importantly it sounds easy. Three in the morning post-sex isn’t a great time for complicated cooking, he thinks, then stops and rewinds his thoughts to: _post-sex. I had sex with Scott._

Scott starts standing up off the couch but quick as a flash Isaac grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him down so their faces are together, locking his eyes with Scott’s wide, questioning ones for a half second before he lets go of his shirt and cradles Scott’s face, then leans in and kisses him. He can feel Scott’s lips curve into a smile against his but he’s kissing back too, his hands sliding down to grab the front of Isaac’s shirt.

Isaac notices how Scott kisses with abandon, throwing himself into it and forgetting everything else—it’s different from the way Erica sometimes kisses him with a calculated purpose, aiming to get something out of him, or the way Jackson’s kissed him so that Isaac felt controlled to the very core of his being. But with Scott…

With Scott it feels like they’re playing, like it’s all about the moment and feeling good and being happy, and he feels light inside, and it’s natural, and easy, and Isaac thinks he’s probably never been happier ever than he is right now.

Isaac leans back and breaks the kiss, then grins brightly up at Scott.

“What was that?” Scott asks, grinning back. He pulls his jeans up and buttons them.

“Just—um, just making sure it’s real,” Isaac admits, grabbing his jeans and putting them back on too. Scott watches him for a few seconds, and then scowls before grabbing Isaac’s hands and pulling him up, then wrapping his arms around Isaac’s neck. It’s a full-body hug, warm and close and tight and it reminds Isaac of the one Scott’s mom had given him earlier.

“It’s real,” Scott breathes into his ear, craning his neck to reach. “And I’m hungry.”

A half hour later Scott’s head is drooping over his half-eaten sandwich. Isaac watches him from the other side of the table as he finishes off the last bite of his own sandwich and licks the jelly off his fingers. He watches as Scott’s eyes zero in on his mouth as he sucks on his forefinger, and Isaac remembers earlier that day with the peaches.

“Have you—um, have you liked me for—for a while?” Isaac asks, blushing.

“Mm,” Scott answers sleepily, looking at his sandwich contemplatively. “I, uh—yeah, I have. For a while I thought still loving Allison meant I couldn’t l—like you too, but… that’s dumb, huh? It’s not like I have, like, a limit on how much love I can give, or… you know.”

“Would you… um,” Isaac trails off, not wanting to finish the question, but Scott perks up and gives him a look.

“Would I what?”

Isaac doesn’t say anything.

“Are you—do you want to know if I’d leave you for Allison if she wanted me back?” Scott asks slowly, staring resolutely at his sandwich.

Isaac shrinks into himself but nods once.

Scott heaves a deep sigh, and Isaac braces himself. “Isaac, I… I really, really like you. It’s weird, it just sort of, like… crept up on me. And at first I thought we were just friends and that was it, it was like Stiles, but… but that doesn’t explain why I… the way I think about you.”

Isaac swallows but relaxes an infinitesimal amount before asking, “How do you think about me?”

Scott flushes and chuckles to himself. “Um, I… I sometimes… I think about you when I’m, uh.” He looks up at Isaac and raises an eyebrow. _“You know.”_

Isaac shakes his head slowly. “When you…?”

Scott huffs out a breath and coughs. “When I’m—” and he lowers his voice to a whisper, _“masturbating.”_

Isaac stares at him for a second and then laughs once, unbelievingly. “Seriously?”

Scott shrugs. “Yeah, I don’t know. It used to always be Allison but then it… it was you instead.” He frowns. “Or sometimes both of you.”

“Huh,” Isaac says.

Scott looks at him shyly. “Do you ever—um, do you ever think of me?”

Snorting and rolling his eyes, Isaac nods. “Of course I do.”

Scott grins eagerly. “Really? What do we do?”

“Are you serious right now?”

“Yeah, come on… I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” Scott says, a sly look on his face.

“Oh my god,” Isaac says, coloring and hiding his face in his hands. “I…” He giggles. “Okay, I guess I… usually it’s just, I imagine your hand instead of mine.” He peeks through his fingers to see Scott’s reaction.

Scott’s got a transfixed look on his face, an intensity that sends sparks through Isaac’s chest. He licks his lips and asks, a little hoarsely, “What else do you think about?”

“I—” Isaac cocks his head to the side. “It’s your turn.”

Scott looks down at the table but he says, quietly, “I think about sucking you off.”

The chair squeaks underneath Isaac as he involuntarily jerks and pushes it back a quarter of an inch. Scott glances up and Isaac puts his hands solidly down on the table to help himself stay still as he asks, “Do you—you— _really?”_

Scott smiles lopsidedly at him. “Yeah. I never thought about it before but once I started wondering what … what it would feel like, what you would—would taste like … and, um.”

“And what?”

Scott leans back, grinning. “Nope, it’s your turn. You said ‘usually’ before… what else do you think about?”

Isaac takes a deep, shuddering breath. He’s not sure how Scott will react but they’re being honest and it’s the middle of the night and somehow being hours from sunlight on either side of them makes him a little more open to spilling his fantasies so he says, in a rush, _“I think about you fucking me.”_

Scott is horrifyingly silent and Isaac presses his lips together, not wanting to look up and see his face, and then Scott is on his feet and Isaac wonders if he’s going to—to hit him or something, but instead Scott roughly pulls Isaac’s chair out with him still on it and then drops to his knees in front of Isaac.

Isaac’s hands flutter up and he looks down at Scott, who’s lightly placing his palms on Isaac’s knees.

“Can I?” Scott asks Isaac, and places the most minimal of pressure between Isaac’s knees, indicating he wants him to spread his legs. “Please?”

Isaac is having a hard time breathing but he manages to nod shakily, and then spreads his legs open so Scott can move forward until his nose is inches from Isaac’s groin. He leans forward and presses his face against Isaac’s dick, hard already in his underwear and jeans. Scott breathes in deep through the fabric, and then he looks up into Isaac’s face.

“You smell good,” Scott murmurs, and Isaac’s mouth goes dry.

“I—”

Scott slides his hands up Isaac’s legs, from his knees to the top of his thighs, then rests his fingers gently over the bulge in Isaac’s jeans. He looks positively pornographic as he licks his lips once and asks Isaac again, “Can I?”

Isaac works hard to steady his breathing as his hands fly to the button on his jeans to get them off _as quickly as possible_ but Scott grabs his wrists and says,

“No, let me do it.” Then he tentatively moves Isaac’s hands up to his head, and adds, sheepishly, “This was the other thing I—I think about. Your hands in—in my hair. Um, holding me in place while you—” Scott blushes hotly and breaks off, but his fingers start working on the button in Isaac’s jeans.

Isaac gulps loudly. “You like— _that?”_ He threads his fingers into Scott’s hair.

Scott stops unzipping Isaac and presses his face against the inside of Isaac’s thigh, embarrassed, but giggling. His body shakes with laughter.

“What?” Isaac asks, baffled.

Scott looks up at him, still giggling, and shakes his head. “I don’t know, man, this is so—uh, not where I thought my night was going to end up when I came over to the house earlier.”

Isaac raises an eyebrow. “You mean you haven’t been carefully planning all of this?”

“You know I never know what I’m doing,” Scott says. “I just sort of… hope things work out, usually. I mean, I started coming over more when I had the excuse that I was looking for Stiles, but…”

“You should have _said something,”_ Isaac says accusingly. “We could have been doing this for _months.”_

“Well, I wasn’t sure you… I mean, you had the thing with Erica and Boyd.”

Isaac tilts his head, acknowledging his point. “Still, I figured you could smell it on me.”

Scott smiles. “I could, but I wasn’t sure it was about me until today.”

Isaac stares at him, and then realizes. “When you ate those peaches from my hand earlier and—and sucked on my fingers—”

“Now _that_ I carefully planned,” Scott says, chuckling. “I could smell the sex with Erica on you, but then there was—like, a whole new wave hitting me.” He bites his lip, trying not to laugh, and his eyes crinkle at the corners. He looks like he’s basking. “It was great.”

“You asshole,” Isaac tells him, laughing.

Scott quirks an eyebrow and his eyes dart down to Isaac’s crotch. “So… shall we continue?”

Isaac snorts, but he tightens his fingers in Scott’s hair. “If you still want to.”

“Yeah,” Scott says breathlessly, and his fingers curl over the side edges of Isaac’s jeans. He tugs at them, and Isaac gets the hint, lifting up so Scott can pull them down, all the way around his ankles.

Isaac’s only half-hard now after getting distracted by the conversation with Scott, but he can feel the blood rushing right out of his head when Scott carefully slides his fingers into the front opening of Isaac’s boxer-briefs and pulls Isaac’s cock out.

He watches with half-lidded eyes as Scott moves his face in and tentatively takes Isaac in his mouth.

_“Oh god,”_ Isaac moans. Erica’s blown him before, but he’s still just as sensitive to it as he was the first time. He’s never done _this_ before, though—getting fully hard inside another person’s mouth. He watches as Scott bobs his head up and down his cock, able to take him in fully for the first several seconds before Isaac’s completely hard. Scott’s mouth is slick, warm, tight around him, and Isaac’s fingers curl around the back of Scott’s neck, one hand moving up to grip the longer dark hair at the top of Scott’s head.

He doesn’t hold him, though, just rests his hands there and lets Scott experiment—Isaac can’t tear his eyes away from Scott’s lips, plump and positively pornographic around his dick as he tries to take all of Isaac into his mouth again. Scott pulls off and just looks at Isaac’s cock for a second, and Isaac starts to feel vaguely self-conscious before Scott ducks his head and licks a long stripe from the bottom of the base of Isaac’s cock to the head. He sucks on the head and Isaac feels Scott’s tongue swirl around and then work on him right— _there—_ underneath the head, and Isaac jerks and his fingers tighten around Scott’s head, keeping him right where he is.

Scott makes a muffled _mmph_ noise and Isaac realizes what he’s doing. His hands fly away from Scott’s head like he’s been burnt. “Sorry—sorry—I didn’t mean to—” he’s saying, but Scott just stops what he’s doing and smiles up at Isaac.

“No, no, that’s what I want.”

Isaac stares down dumbly at Scott. “You—you want me to, um…”

Scott’s eyes flicker down to Isaac’s dick and then back up again. “That’s what I meant earlier. You, um… you know.”

Isaac raises his eyebrows and shakes his head, not understanding.

Scott sighs and huffs a laugh at himself. He presses his face into Isaac’s bare thigh and mumbles, “You holding my head and—and going—into my mouth—like—”

Isaac has trouble breathing for half a second, but then he asks, his voice coming out a little too high, “Like fucking your face?”

Scott looks up suddenly, his eyes dark and intense, and nods once.

Isaac can’t quite believe this is reality, but—well. “I—we can do that,” Isaac says, then adds, softly, “I don’t want to hurt you though.”

Isaac can hear Scott’s heartbeat speeding up, his hands shakily inching behind Isaac’s back and pulling him so he’s up on his feet, standing in front of Scott’s face, his dick hanging heavy just inches from Scott’s mouth.

“If it starts to hurt I’ll—I’ll claw into your butt,” Scott says, and Isaac can’t help giggling.

“You’ll claw into my butt?” he asks, repeating the words in amused disbelief, and Scott breaks into a grin.

“Yeah, you jackass,” Scott says. “We’re werewolves, remember?”

“Oh, I remember,” Isaac replies, and tenses momentarily when he feels Scott’s hands slip around his hips, his fingers digging into the flesh, but his fingertips still just blunt human nails, not werewolf claws. Isaac tries not to think about the hot thrill that chases through him fantasizing about Scott’s claws coming out and drawing lines down his back as he pushes Isaac down onto a bed somewhere and fucks him hard for hours and hours—his breath catches and he hears his heart go _thump-thump-thump,_ which means Scott does too—

“What are you thinking about?” Scott asks Isaac curiously, then licks tentatively at the head of Isaac’s cock, thick and hard in front of him.

Isaac groans and grits out, “I was thinking about how long we could fuck each other for.”

Scott freezes and his brow furrows, then his eyes widen and he looks up at Isaac in wonder. “I didn’t even—didn’t even _think_ about that, but we don’t get physically tired and our bodies heal so—” Scott breaks off and Isaac can see him thinking— _really thinking_ —about it. He continues slowly, “And I can get hard again like—like right away, I just— _don’t_ if I’m done, you know, getting off once, or—or twice—”

“I think we could go until our brains shut down, really,” Isaac says, almost idly, and Scott licks his lips and nods.

“Yeah—yeah—like we’d still have to _sleep_ but—I don’t get, like, physically exhausted anymore so—”

“Yeah,” Isaac breathes out, and Scott grins.

“We can test it sometime,” Scott says. “Right now I want you to—to—” and he sucks Isaac’s cock into his mouth and pulls Isaac’s hips forward, forcing Isaac’s cock in until it hits the back of his throat.

Isaac watches and waits to see if Scott gags, but although his eyes water he doesn’t pull away, just closes them and hollows his cheeks, swallowing once.

The intense suction hits Isaac to his core, and his hips jerk forward on their own. Scott rocks back on his knees but doesn’t take his mouth off Isaac, still has his nose almost pressed against Isaac’s abdomen, and Isaac groans and twines his fingers harder into Scott’s hair. Scott hums an approving noise, and his grip tightens on Isaac’s ass, urging him to thrust forward again.

Isaac has a flash of wonder at how lucky he is that Scott—that Scott even _wants_ him, and that he wants him like _this—_

He bites his lip to keep from crying out as he pushes again and again into Scott’s mouth, watches Scott’s face with a sharp focus, looking for any signs of discomfort. He sees when Scott figures out how to completely relax his jaw and just let Isaac have total control of his mouth. Scott’s eyes flutter closed and he almost has this _blissful_ look on his face, and Isaac _loses_ _it_ and grips the back of Scott’s hair tight in his fist before thrusting once, twice down his throat and coming. Scott groans around his cock and the vibration sends a jolt of sensation through him as his hips keep working forward through his orgasm.

Isaac pulls out of Scott’s mouth, moaning when he sees how his lips are red and swollen. Isaac’s almost weak-kneed despite werewolf strength, so he drops down in front of Scott and kisses him, his arms wrapping around Scott’s neck and pulling him into a tight embrace. Then he remembers—Scott hasn’t been able to touch himself—and one of Isaac’s hands snakes down and slips into Scott’s boxers, only to feel—

Isaac leans back and looks at Scott in the face. He looks a little sheepish.

“Did you—?” Isaac asks, and Scott nods, burying his face into Isaac’s shoulder.

“God, I loved that,” Scott mumbles.

Isaac blushes and laughs breathily against the side of Scott’s head. “Wow.”

“Shut up,” Scott says into Isaac’s shirt.

“No… I love—I love that you got off just—just from that,” Isaac clarifies, and Scott tilts back and looks him in the eye.

“So about that, um, brains shutting down thing?” Scott asks.

“You sleepy?”

Scott nods. “Yeah.”

Isaac blows out a quick breath. “Okay… let’s just clean up the kitchen and then I’ll head out.”

Scott stares at him blankly. “Head out?”

“Back to the Hale house,” he explains.

Scott’s already shaking his head before Isaac finishes the sentence. “You’re sleeping here,” Scott says with conviction, and Isaac starts, surprised.

“What—really? But what about your mom?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Scott says, waving a hand. “Let’s just clean up and go crash.”

Isaac doesn’t argue, because he wants with every fiber in his being to sleep over at Scott’s house, and he worries if he pushes the issue Scott will decide he should leave, after all. Just thinking about sleeping skin-next-to-skin with Scott in his bed, immersed in Scott’s scent, gets Isaac to move quickly cleaning up the crumbs from their sandwiches. Scott, to his credit, thinks to clean the chair Isaac was sitting on, too, and wipes down the table.

“Okay,” Scott says, and comes up behind Isaac, placing his hands on Isaac’s hips and butting his head gently into the middle of Isaac’s back. “Upstairs.”

They brush their teeth together in front of the mirror in Scott’s bathroom, Isaac using his finger with toothpaste on it. Scott makes a face at him in the mirror and Isaac elbows him, making a face back. It feels comfortable—nice. Isaac feels more at home than he has since his brother died. He gets sad, then, thinking about Camden, but Scott sees his frown in the mirror and wraps one arm tight around Isaac’s back. The touch is warmth and comfort to him, and Isaac can’t believe how he’s already so used to feeling Scott’s hands on him after just one day—just one night, really.

After they spit and rinse out their mouths, they strip off each other’s shirts slowly, not rushing now, just exposing inch after inch of skin to one another until they’re standing in front of each other in just their boxer-briefs. It’s not that Isaac hasn’t been around naked, unselfconscious guys for a while now—Jackson especially has absolutely no shame when they’re just around the Hale house as a pack—but there’s an extra layer to it with Scott. There’s an underlying tremor of _mine_ that Isaac’s starting to feel vibrating deep inside him, and he wants nothing more than to wrap himself around Scott and not let go.

So they do. Scott crawls into bed and collapses, but stretches an arm up for Isaac to slide under, and then shifts until they’re all tangled limbs and touching skin and Isaac can imagine for a second that he doesn’t know where he ends and Scott begins.

In the last seconds before they fall asleep, Isaac presses his face against Scott’s bicep and breathes in deep, inhaling and savoring his scent. His last thought before losing consciousness is how pleased he is that he can faintly detect traces of his own scent on Scott’s skin, something that would be undetectable to a human but completely obvious to a werewolf. _Mine._

-

Isaac wakes suddenly, the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs pulling him out of sleep. Scott is still out, and Isaac realizes that although he slept for several hours earlier that night, Scott must have stayed awake watching the movie and other TV—maybe even watching Isaac sleep. The idea of it fills him with intense warmth, but then he remembers: footsteps in the hallway.

He can smell that it’s Melissa, and of course she’s home from work by now—the sky is starting to lighten outside Scott’s curtains—and he’s not sure how she’d take to finding her son in bed with someone unexpectedly—or at all—let alone with another _boy—_ so Isaac carefully slips out of Scott’s grip, cheating with werewolf strength, and looks for his jeans on the floor.

He’s just starting to pull them up his legs when he hears Melissa right outside Scott’s door, and then her voice saying to him, softly, “Isaac, it’s fine.”

Isaac freezes, hunched over, with his jeans pulled halfway up, and he’s not sure if he should take them off again or double-time it and escape out the window, but before he can make a decision, Melissa’s pushing the door open quietly. She sticks her head in, sees Isaac, raises an eyebrow, and whispers, “C’mere.”

Isaac wants to die.

Instead he pulls his jeans all the way on and slides out the door to stand in the hall with her. He can feel how red his face must be, and he can’t meet her eyes.

“Are you sleeping with my son?” she asks Isaac, and he cringes and tries to shrink, his shoulders dropping and his head falling.

He nods minutely.

_“Sleeping_ -sleeping?” she adds. “Or just sleeping?”

Isaac wants to lie but he also just—he _can’t—_ because it’s Melissa and she’s been so nice to him and maybe she’ll hate him now but lying to her is physically impossible.

“We—I— _sleeping_ -sleeping,” he finishes, unable to say the words _I had sex with your son_ out loud, let alone, _Twice._

Melissa blows out a sigh but then chuckles. Isaac, shocked, looks up and sees her expression. She’s not mad. She doesn’t look thrilled, but her face is filled more with amusement than disappointment.

“I’m not— _happy_ , we’ll say, that you’re having sex,” she whispers, and Isaac makes a face and wishes invisibility were a werewolf power. “But I can’t say I didn’t see it coming.”

Isaac’s mouth drops open. “Are you—seriously?”

Melissa reaches a hand out and wraps it gently around Isaac’s wrist. “Scott talks about you all the time. You were there for him, Isaac—when no one else was, or could be. I was there when Jackson— _you know_.”

“Died,” Isaac supplies. “And then came back to life.”

“Yes, that,” Melissa says hurriedly. “I was there—and the only person I saw helping my son was you. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I do know that you were there. And you’re here now.”

Isaac gulps and glances at the door.

“He’s been lonely,” Melissa murmurs, so quietly that Isaac almost misses it for the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. “And it’s not like he’s going to get you pregnant,” she adds, then a look of sheer horror passes across her face. “I mean—that’s not—being a werewolf doesn’t make that _possible,_ does it?”

Isaac chokes on his laughter and shakes his head. “No, that’s, um—that doesn’t come with the package.”

She presses her lips together, rolls her eyes up and snorts out a laugh. “This is one of the strangest conversations I’ve ever had.”

“You and me both,” Isaac says.

She smiles up at him fondly. “You’re good for Scott, okay? I… I didn’t know he liked boys too, but when he talks about you he lights up the same way when he talks about Allison. I think he just didn’t see it for what it was. It took me forever to convince him to invite you over.”

Isaac sputters. “You—what? It was your idea?”

Melissa chuckles. “Why do you think I made lasagna in the first place?” Then she sobers quickly and puts her hands on either side of his arms, holding him. He tenses, and she says, “I know—I know what your home life was like, Isaac.”

Isaac pales but tries not to pull away from her. She squeezes gently on his arms and continues,

“And you’re always welcome in this house, okay? Even if—well, if whatever you and Scott have doesn’t—you know, work out—you’re always welcome here.”

“I—I don’t—” He can feel the tears building in his eyes as his voice cracks. “Thank you,” he manages weakly.

Melissa pulls him in for a full hug then, and he gives himself over to her warmth for as long as it lasts. After several seconds she lets him go and nudges him gently at Scott’s door.

Isaac sits down on the edge of Scott’s bed, listening to the sounds of Melissa changing out of work clothes and slipping into her bed. When her breathing grows deep and regular, Isaac turns and looks at Scott stretched out on his back in bed, his skin soft and gleaming golden in the warm light filtering through the shades. Isaac crawls toward him and reaches his hand out tentatively, letting his fingers fall on Scott’s chest and linger there. His skin is warm and smooth to the touch, and Isaac wonders if his scent is imprinted there. Isaac can’t help himself when he dips his head and licks once at a crevice in Scott’s abs. Scott tastes faintly still of sweat and come—not just his own but Isaac’s, too. It’s comforting to Isaac, in a way that’s distinctly werewolf-related, and he lowers his face again and presses his cheek against Scott’s chest, then nuzzles up into the slope of his neck.

Scott makes a soft, sleepy noise, and Isaac stills. Still asleep, Scott turns over abruptly and his arms reach out and trap Isaac before he can move away, then pull him in. Isaac lets himself be pulled until he’s wrapped in Scott’s embrace, Scott’s face pressed against Isaac’s neck, soft puffs of his breath tickling faintly against his clavicle. Isaac counts Scott’s breaths until he forgets what number he’s at, but before he can start again he’s falling asleep himself.

_Isaac dreams and in his dream he’s walking again along the yellow banks of a wide river, and he sees up ahead two people sitting with their feet in the water, talking softly. He doesn’t know another path to take, so he keeps walking toward them and sees it’s Scott and Allison, and his heart inside him feels like it’s being frozen until Scott turns and sees him and smiles bright and warm. Scott stands and walks to him, forgetting Allison completely, and he kisses Isaac long and sweet right there on the bank of the river. He takes Isaac’s hand and leads him farther up the river, where the trees grow over the banks and the branches dip and dance into the current. There’s wild thyme and oxlips and violets growing there, and Scott lays Isaac down in a bed of musk-roses and eglantine and makes love to him, gentle and doting, until Isaac’s head is thick with love and he feels dizzy and sits up, and Scott’s face turns dark and distrusting and he reaches out and pulls at a corner of Isaac’s face and rips it away, and Isaac cries out in pain but sees in Scott’s hand a wolf mask, and Scott shaking his head at him in anger and shouting at him “you aren’t the one, you aren’t the right one!” and Isaac’s bleeding, pinpricks all over his body from the thorns of the roses and he reaches out to Scott but Scott’s running away, throwing the wolf mask into the river and screaming behind him “not you not you not you not you!” and Isaac tries to get up but there are vines around him, growing thick and strong and pulling him deep into the earth where he’ll never see the light of day again—_

Isaac rips out of sleep suddenly, sweat dripping from his forehead and tremors running through his body, and he can’t move but it’s not vines—it’s Scott, arms tight around Isaac’s middle, and a leg flung over Isaac’s legs. Isaac’s heart is jackhammering and he takes a few deep breaths, trying to steady himself. Scott makes a discontented noise, and then yawns and opens his eyes slowly, smiling first at seeing Isaac’s face, then frowning at the wild fear still obviously painted on it.

“What’s wrong?” Scott asks, and at hearing his voice Isaac starts to calm down.

“Another nightmare,” Isaac says, and Scott sighs and leans in to kiss his cheek.

“What was it about?” he asks softly, loosening his grip on Isaac but not letting him go, either.

Isaac breaths in deep and turns in Scott’s grip until he’s on his stomach, resting his head on his crossed arms. Scott slips his arm out from under Isaac and inches back to give him space, but rests his other arm lightly across Isaac’s back, his fingertips pressing soft patterns into Isaac’s skin. Isaac sighs out happily.

“It’s not important,” he mumbles, and Scott’s fingers stop moving.

“Was it about the flowers again?” he asks.

Isaac shakes his head, then stops, thinks about it, and nods hesitantly. “I was Bottom.”

Scott chokes on a laugh and says, “Yeah, I—I know you said you wanted to—”

Isaac wrinkles his brow, lifting his face to stare in confusion at Scott, and then realizes and bursts out laughing. “Not—no, I was Bottom, from the play—you know, the guy who gets turned into a donkey.”

“Oh!” Scott says. He pauses and then giggles against Isaac’s shoulder. “But you still want to—you know—”

“Oh my god,” Isaac says, closing his eyes. “You have a one-track mind, McCall.”

Scott shrugs, but he runs his fingers down Isaac’s back, letting them rest right at the base of Isaac’s spine, tantalizing inches from his asshole. “Just wondering,” Scott says casually, and Isaac feels a shiver run through him.

“I—I want to do both?” Isaac offers, wondering if that’s okay. He glances at Scott’s face, and he doesn’t look freaked out, so Isaac continues, “I think about, um, you fucking me when I’m beating off but… it’s not like I don’t think about fucking you too sometimes.”

“If it feels good, I wanna try it,” Scott says easily, shrugging. His fingers dip lower, pressing carefully down Isaac’s crack, just touching gently, not with any real purpose, and then they slide again up Isaac’s back, drawing patterns on his shoulder blades. “So tell me more about this dream where you were a donkey.”

Isaac snorts. “I was a wolf, actually.”

Scott makes a confused noise. “You _are_ a wolf.”

“I know, but it was like—I had a wolf mask on, and when you took it off you didn’t—” Isaac breaks off, realizing his voice is going to crack if he finishes that sentence.

“I didn’t what?” Scott asks, tilting his head to try to look Isaac in the eye, but Isaac hides his face in his arms. _“Isaac,”_ he says, pressing his fingers harder into Isaac’s back, but like a massage, not painful. He works at a knot in Isaac’s back for a few minutes, then stops and pleads, “C’mon. You can tell me.”

Isaac sighs, closes his eyes tight and mutters, “You didn’t want me anymore.”

Scott freezes, his arm stiff and heavy on Isaac’s back. Finally, he asks, hesitantly, “But you know I want you, right?”

“I…” Isaac nods minutely. “It was just a dream.”

“Hmm,” Scott says musingly. “And was Allison in this dream?”

Isaac pushes up onto his elbows, twisting his head to look Scott full in the face. “How did you know that?”

Scott makes a pained expression. “Isaac, I—I don’t want you to think I’m just… I don’t know… messing around with you until Allison comes around. It’s not like that. _I like you._ I want _you.”_

“You really mean that?” Isaac asks, relaxing.

Scott makes a face at him and rolls his eyes. “Yes, you doofus.”

Isaac groans and drops his face onto his arms again. “That play really messed me up,” he says. “Glad it was _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ and not like _Hamlet_ or something or I’d be dreaming about her stabbing me through a curtain.”

“Through a curtain?” Scott asks.

“Is _Hamlet_ on your reading list?”

“No.”

“Then don’t worry about it,” Isaac says.

Scott chuckles but then says, quietly, “You know, I get why you don’t like her. She—she did some awful things. But I think—um, you’d like her, if you got to know her.”

Isaac hums disbelievingly.

“Not that—not that you have to,” Scott adds quickly. “I just mean … I dunno, there’s more to her than just being a hunter and—and maybe it would be nice to be friends, at least.”

“I don’t think she wants to be friends,” Isaac mutters, and Scott sighs.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

They’re quiet then, Isaac thinking over his dream as well as what Scott’s said, and replaying the previous night’s activities in his head. It’s hard to believe any of it’s real, but here he is, in bed, Scott stretched out next to him rubbing concentric circles into Isaac’s back. His fingers play across Isaac’s skin, deft and searching, mapping out lines and patterns. Isaac’s reminded, vaguely, of the way Scott’s fingers look when they’re rethreading a lacrosse stick, careful and precise in their placement. Scott drags them down Isaac’s arm and up again, then traveling across his shoulder, his fingers reach the base of Isaac’s neck and walk up to his hair, where they tangle into his curls for a few seconds. They don’t stay there for long, though, Scott dragging blunt fingernails all the way from

“Your skin is so smooth,” Scott whispers, pressing his hand flat against the small of Isaac’s back.

“Mm,” Isaac answers sleepily. “Your skin’s smooth too.”

“Yeah?”

Isaac makes a muffled noise of assent and adds, “And tastes good.”

“Oh?” Scott asks, the pitch of his voice raised. “When have you been tasting it?”

Isaac starts out of the slumber he was falling into and blushes fiercely, his heart pounding rapidly a few times. “I—uh, might have woken up earlier.”

“And licked me?” Scott asks. His voice isn’t upset, it’s more—heatedly interested.

“I just…” Isaac sighs. “I just wanted to—uh, I don’t know.” He tries to think about how to explain it to Scott, and then remembers, _duh, Scott’s a werewolf, he’ll get it._ “You know how being a werewolf makes all your senses heightened?”

“Yeah.”

“I—I was just watching you sleeping and you looked so—so good and I wanted to—”

“To what?”

Isaac takes in a deep, steadying breath, and admits, “Wanted to taste myself on you. Make sure it’s my scent on your skin.”

Scott’s quiet for half a second, then he says, low and guttural, _“Fuck.”_ His fingernails scrape down Isaac’s back, slipping underneath Isaac’s underwear and digging into the flesh of the cheeks of his ass. Isaac makes a whimpering noise and squirms onto his side facing Scott, his arms snaking around to pull Scott in flush against his body, pressing wet kisses but also licking up Scott’s neck.

Isaac starts panting, his heart beating fast, and he presses himself closer to Scott—as close as he can get, rubbing up against him not just for the blissful friction at their groins but to get his scent on Scott, and Scott’s scent on him. Scott makes a low groan deep in his throat and tightens his grip around Isaac, his legs twining around Isaac’s until they’re locked together, neither willing to loosen his grip. Scott buries his face into Isaac’s neck, taking in deep huffs of breath and rubbing his cheek along Isaac’s skin where Scott’s scent isn’t fully planted.

_“Yes,”_ Isaac hisses, the perfume of Scott’s scent and his combining together satisfying that innate craving for a marked mate.

Scott makes a muffled, needy sound, and leans his face up to whisper into Isaac’s ear, “I want your scent on me—so _everyone knows.”_

Isaac groans and tilts his face down to meet Scott’s, their lips crashing together, his tongue fucking into Scott’s mouth, and he rocks his hips forward in rhythm with the kiss, feeling Scott hard against him and wanting to come _now_ just to take the edge off before letting Scott open him up with his fingers and mark him on the inside, and they’re still wrapped tight around each other, neither letting go an inch, just shifting and twisting together to find the best angles, and then—

Then there’s a creak out in the hall as Melissa walks by, and they both freeze and listen, not breathing, waiting to hear her reprimand through the door.

She keeps walking and heads down stairs, though, and Scott relaxes in Isaac’s arms and hides his face against Isaac’s chest to bury his laughter. His whole body shakes with it and it makes Isaac break into a smile too.

“Damn,” Scott says. “I have the best mom.”

“Yeah, you do,” Isaac replies, remembering his conversation with her.

One of Scott’s hands splays out across Isaac’s back and holds him, almost pinned, against Scott’s body. Isaac arches into the touch, and Scott’s hand slides lower.

“Have you ever—?” Scott asks in a hushed whisper, his fingertips resting heavy at the top of the curve of Isaac’s ass.

“Have I ever _what?”_ Isaac asks, arching an eyebrow meaningfully.

Scott pauses and his fingers tense against Isaac’s skin. “Did you—when you had sex with Erica and Boyd, did Boyd ever—”

“No,” Isaac says quickly. “He wasn’t interested.”

Scott makes a quiet, satisfied noise, and Isaac almost feels sick before he admits,

“But Jackson did.”

Scott, to his credit, doesn’t pull away, but he grows very still next to Isaac, and Isaac can hear his heart beating faster. _He’s angry_ , Isaac thinks _._

Finally, Scott asks softly, “Was he good to you?”

It’s so completely not the question Isaac was expecting— _how could you, why would you, how dare you, why Jackson—_ that he flinches in Scott’s arms. Scott’s hands still wrap around him, but he loosens his grip, not wanting to trap Isaac—if he doesn’t want to be trapped. Isaac appreciates the gesture, and he rolls down and into Scott so his shoulder is pressed against Scott’s chest, his stomach flat on the bed, and he rests his head again on his crossed arms, turning to look at Scott when he answers.

“It meant nothing to Jackson. We were just—just doing pack bonding. He knew that I—that I wanted it. So he offered.”

Scott lets out a low growl, but he clears his throat and asks in an even voice, “He didn’t hurt you?”

Isaac makes a face and shakes his head. “No—no, he didn’t.”

Scott lets out a breath, what could be a sigh of relief, and explains quietly, “Jackson has a habit of hurting people, even if he’s not doing it on purpose.” He’s contemplative for a minute, and then leans over Isaac halfway. The heat of his chest is like fire on the left side of Isaac’s back, and he asks right into Isaac’s ear, “Did you smell like him after?”

Isaac shivers and twists, catching Scott’s mouth in a kiss. Scott carefully slides the rest of the way onto Isaac’s back, and Isaac can’t help how much he loves the feel of Scott’s weight resting full on top of him. Scott grinds down onto Isaac’s ass once, the hard line of his cock pressing onto Isaac’s crack, separated just by underwear. Isaac bucks his hips up for more contact, but Scott slips down, dragging his nails down Isaac’s back until his fingers are curled in the waistband of Isaac’s boxer-briefs, Scott’s breath hot against Isaac’s hole through the fabric.

“Do you still smell like him?” Scott wonders, half to himself, and Isaac has to stuff his fist into his mouth to quiet the moan he helplessly lets out.

“Please,” Isaac breathes, and then he feels Scott bite playfully, gently into the globe of one of his ass cheeks through his underwear. Isaac whimpers and says again, begging, _“Please—please Scott.”_

“What do you want me to do?” Scott asks.

“Fuck me,” Isaac says immediately, wanting it more than he knew.

Scott sighs, and his tone is hilariously sad as he says, “We can’t do that with my mom just downstairs.” Isaac feels a thrill at the idea of them getting caught, then almost bites into his fist when Scott adds, idly, “She’d hear the bed move.”

“Oh god,” Isaac whispers, half out of disappointment and half out of total, complete, irrepressible lust.

“But we could do something else,” Scott says, “if you want. With fingers.” He reaches across Isaac and opens the drawer of his nightstand, pulling out a small tub of Vaseline. “I don’t have real lube, we’ll have to, uh, go get some, I guess, if what Stiles tells me even though I don’t want to hear about it means anything … but this could work for right now.”

Isaac snorts. “Vaseline is super sexy.”

“Shut up,” Scott says, chuckling. “Are you—are you okay with me trying this?”

“Yeah,” Isaac says breathily. “More than okay.”

“Okay, lift up,” Scott says.

Isaac raises his hips off the bed, and Scott pulls his underwear down and off, then gently takes Isaac’s heels in his hands and pulls them apart. Isaac realizes what Scott wants and he spreads his legs so Scott can have better access. Open and exposed, he almost feels lightheaded with how turned on he is. He rocks his hips in tiny circles into the bed, getting just enough friction on his cock, hard and leaking, trapped between his stomach and the mattress. 

“Okay,” Scott murmurs, then Isaac can feel the bed shift as Scott leans in, and he can feel Scott’s fingers pulling on his cheeks around his hole, and he can feel Scott’s breath hot against him, and he wonders for a second if Scott’s going to—and then he _does,_ his tongue lathing warm and wet from behind his balls all the way up over his entrance and then to the base of his spine. _“God,”_ Scott says, “the way you _taste.”_

Isaac whines and Scott licks a long stripe again along the same path. Isaac writhes under his grip but Scott holds him steady and whispers, “You’re going to smell like _me.”_

There’s a brief pause as Scott takes one of his hands away, and then it’s back again, and Isaac can feel the tip of one of Scott’s fingers just pushing gently at his hole. It’s warm and slick with Vaseline, and the nerve endings around his entrance are sending tingles back up his spine. Isaac remembers the first time he fingered himself, how he was just exploring out of curiosity, wondering if what he’d read on the Internet could possibly be true, and how _—yes—_ it was true, how good it could feel, especially if he fisted his dick while he had two fingers of his other hand up his ass. Feeling Scott’s fingers instead of his own is a completely different sensory experience, though, and he has to bite his lip almost until it bleeds to stop from crying out.

Scott’s just testing, Isaac can tell, pressing his finger in circles right at the edges of Isaac’s hole, then pushing in just a quarter of the tip, barely there. Isaac knows he’s not teasing on purpose, but it feels like it, and he can’t help but push back onto Scott’s finger, wanting more.

“Hmm,” Scott says, and then slides his finger in halfway. Isaac bears down around it, wanting more, deeper, thicker, and Scott gives it to him, letting his finger slip all the way inside Isaac, then rotating it gently from the base. Isaac muffles his moan by biting into his arm, his teeth thankfully not werewolf enough to break the skin.

Scott’s other hand starts rubbing gently up and down Isaac’s back, and Isaac lifts his hips instinctively under Scott’s touch. He wants to feel Scott’s hands on him always, forever, until he forgets what it’s like not to have them there. When Scott pulls his finger out, Isaac wants to turn around and grab his wrist to guide it back in, but feeling him tense, Scott’s hand on his back grows heavy, holding him down.

“Scott, please, more,” Isaac demands, and Scott laughs.

“I love that you love this,” Scott says. “I like making you feel good.”

Isaac smiles brightly against the skin of his arm, tears inexplicably appearing in his eyes. He’s never felt this _wanted_ before, by anyone, ever, and it’s making every point where Scott’s touching him feel like electricity.

Scott rubs his back a few more times, and then he presses again against Isaac’s hole, and it’s two fingers this time. Isaac bears back on them and Scott gives him what he wants, pushing them inside. He rotates them carefully again, making room for a third, but Isaac’s almost trembling with how hard he is, and he says to Scott,

“Just—twist them down and then—there’s a spot, on the bottom like a few inches inside, if you can find it—”

“Oh,” Scott says, “Stiles told me about that.” Before Isaac can respond, Scott’s twisting his fingers inside like Isaac asks, pressing them up and down the anterior wall of Isaac’s ass. Isaac chokes off a moan and pushes up against Scott’s hand.

“Keep—keep—”

“What’s it feel like?” Scott asks.

“It’s—it’s kind of a lump, you just have to find the spot that’s by the—”

Before he can finish, Scott drags his fingers _just_ right and Isaac jerks, crying out involuntarily and then biting into his arm again.

“Shh,” Scott says, stopping the movement of his fingers. “You have to be quiet.”

Isaac nods his head and Scott presses again against his prostate, massaging over it again and again and Isaac almost wants to cry, it feels so good. He jerks his hips down into the mattress, trying to get friction on his cock too, and then he feels Scott leaning up, his fingers still working in Isaac’s ass, but his mouth up against the soft sensitive skin on the side of Isaac’s lower back. He feels Scott’s teeth coming out and realizes it’s his werewolf teeth, that Scott’s lost just enough control to let himself slip that much—that Isaac’s bringing out some of the animal instinct—and Scott’s teeth press into Isaac’s skin. It’s just a nibble, teasing, but Isaac’s vision is at the edge of whiting out, and he can feel his orgasm building, building… and then he feels Scott bite _hard_ into his flesh and Isaac gives himself over to the feeling, rutting down one more time into the mattress and then coming hard, his hips jerking down again and again, Scott massaging against his prostate while he licks over the bite mark on Isaac’s back, and Isaac feels so owned, so marked, so _good—_ he almost blacks out. Scott pulling his fingers slowly out of Isaac’s ass, and the persistent way he keeps licking at the bite mark on Isaac’s back, is what keeps him conscious.

Isaac moans quietly, trying to gather his brain together again after it was scattered apart so beautifully. Scott rubs his back with his hand again and then kisses the bite mark, which—

“It’s healed,” Scott says.

“Okay,” Isaac manages.

“But you smell like me now,” Scott says, and the note of pride in his voice makes Isaac want to grab him and never let go, but his limbs don’t seem to be working at the moment.

Isaac turns his head and watches vaguely as Scott crawls up onto the bed beside him, pushing his own underwear down so his cock is out. Isaac wants to reach out and pump him until he comes, but he can’t move yet. Scott grins cheekily at him and wraps his hand around himself, then closes his eyes and lets his head fall back, thumping against the wall.

Isaac can only watch as Scott jerks himself off, biting his lip and breathing in pants, fisting himself fast and hard and in just a few seconds he’s arching up into his hand, a string of come painting up his torso. Isaac wants to lick it off, know what Scott tastes like. He’s finding his strength again now, and he shakily pushes himself up onto his hands and knees, crawling on top of Scott and ducking his head, catching every drop of come with his tongue. Scott tastes— _good,_ a little bitter—but he tastes good, reminiscent of how he smells. One of Scott’s hands finds its way into Isaac’s curls, carding through them slowly as Isaac collapses next to Scott’s lap, his face pressed into Scott’s thigh.

He’s starting to wonder why they don’t just stay like that forever when Melissa calls up from downstairs,

“Scott! You better finish your homework before tomorrow!”

Scott sighs and lets his head thump back against the wall again, this time out of frustration. “Okay!” he calls back.

“I hope she didn’t hear anything,” Isaac says.

“Oh, god,” Scott moans. “She knows, though, she has to.”

“Oh yeah, she knows,” Isaac says, and something in his voice must tip Scott off—

“Did you talk to her?”

Isaac chuckles and nods. “Early this morning. She caught me off-guard and interrogated me.”

“Oh man, sorry,” Scott says.

“No,” Isaac replies. “She’s—uh, good. She knows what we’re doing but… I think she probably knows it’s going to happen _somewhere_ and she’d rather we be here than like, somewhere cold and uncomfortable.” Isaac realizes he started the sentence talking about sex, but he ends it referring to just—living. She wants him to live somewhere comfortable, _not_ the cold and broken-down Hale house. “She’s—she’s kind of the best.”

Scott snorts, but it’s soft and affectionate. “Yeah. She is.”

They stay where they are for a few more minutes, Scott scratching gently at Isaac’s scalp as Isaac enjoys the close proximity to Scott’s skin, inhaling and liking the smell of both their scents and sex and sweat on him. He sighs.

“What?” Scott asks.

“You’re gonna have to take a shower eventually,” Isaac replies dismally.

Scott laughs. “So are you,” he points out. He makes a soft, knowing noise, and then says, “We’ll just have to mark each other again after.”

Isaac grins, his face still smushed against Scott’s thigh, and nods.

They’re quiet again for a few minutes, and Isaac can’t help but wonder how many times Scott did this with Allison, running his fingers through her dark hair. Isaac wonders, offhand, how soft her skin was, and if she kissed with intention or with abandon…

“Were you like this with Allison too?” Isaac asks.

Scott hums and thinks about it for a few heavy seconds before answering, “It was a little different. For one thing we were always in danger of being caught by her parents or Kate…”

Isaac chuckles. “Talk about a mood- _killer_.”

Scott swats Isaac’s head gently, but laughs at the pun. “And… something about how you’re a werewolf too…”

“What?” Isaac asks, tilting his face just enough to look up at Scott sidelong.

Scott smiles. “Because you know what it’s like … sometimes I feel like you know my body just as well as I do.” He ruffles Isaac’s hair. “And the other stuff, too. What it’s like being a werewolf. Stiles tries but he just doesn’t … get it. He can’t.”

“Maybe getting … intimately acquainted with Derek will shed some light for him.”

Scott makes a face and sticks his tongue out. “Bleh, I cannot—it’s—thinking about Stiles—doing— _that—_ is just—”

“All right,” Isaac laughs. “Didn’t mean to break your brain.”

Scott pulls at one of Isaac’s curls and sits up, sighing. “Mom’s gonna kill me if I don’t finish my homework though.”

Isaac rolls away from him and arches his back, stretching. “Well, we still have to finish the play. Two more acts.” He tilts his head back just in time to catch the sweet smile on Scott’s face as he looks down at Isaac.

“You gonna read to me again?” Scott asks, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“If you want me to,” Isaac says, and Scott nods.

They get up, helping each other off the bed and into the bathroom, where they stand side-by-side and clean up, wiping down just enough so their smell won’t be obvious to Melissa, but not enough to get rid of their scents on each other.

Back in Scott’s room, Scott lets Isaac wear a clean pair of his underwear before Isaac pulls his jeans back on. Picking his shirt up, he sniffs it and wrinkles his nose. Scott laughingly tosses a clean shirt at him too, and when Isaac slips it on, it fits loosely and shows an inch of his waist at the bottom. He sees Scott eyeing him there before Scott’s fingers find their way to Isaac’s waist on their own and play patterns on the skin, then grab and pull him close.

Scott still kisses Isaac with meaning, like he can think of nothing else when their lips are pressed together. As he wraps his arms around Scott’s back, Isaac feels that deep pulsing warmth inside his chest that’s distinctly Scott-related, and he smiles against Scott’s lips.

Scott ducks his head and looks up at Isaac through his eyelashes, murmuring, “I like you wearing my clothes.”

“I like me wearing your clothes too,” Isaac says.

Scott smiles, gently butts his head against Isaac’s chest, and then sighs and says, “Okay, homework.”

Downstairs, Melissa is just curling up on the couch with a cup of coffee and a magazine. She smirks when she sees them. “Sleep well?”

Scott snorts and says mock-defensively, _“Yes.”_

She grins. “There’s more coffee if you want it.”

“Thank you,” Isaac says quickly, trying to impart the words with deeper meaning.

Melissa nods at him. “You going to help Scott with his homework again, Isaac?”

“Yeah,” Isaac says. “The Shakespeare, at least.”

“Good.”

They pull together a breakfast of toast, eggs, and more toast and more eggs and then settle quietly at the table to eat, periodically glancing up and catching each other’s eye, grinning and blushing down into their plates. It’s giddy and silly and Isaac hasn’t felt this way before. He wonders if this is how Boyd and Erica make each other feel—or Derek and Stiles, even. Though he couldn’t imagine Derek ever willingly playing footsie with Stiles under the table, and that’s definitely Scott’s toes tickling his insole. Isaac smirks and traps one of Scott’s feet under his left heel, just as Scott digs his toes down into the top of his right foot.

They stay sitting like that for the rest of breakfast, silent but each with one foot trapped and one foot trapping, dominance shared equally between them.

After they finish eating, Isaac reaches out a hand to pull Scott’s textbook toward him, but Scott holds a finger up and tilts his head to the side, listening intently. His eyes widen minutely after a second and he glances at Isaac, whispering, “Mom’s asleep.”

Isaac listens too, and recognizes the telltale heavy, even breathing of a sleeper. “Do you want to read upstairs?” he whispers back.

Scott makes a face and shakes his head. “Outside.”

Isaac finds this agreeable, and he picks up the book, then follows Scott out his back door to the lawn. Scott stretches and makes happy noises, then promptly falls to the ground, rolling onto his back. Isaac smiles at him fondly, then drops down on the grass beside him, crossing his legs and letting the book sit open in his lap.

Isaac finds the fourth act of the play and skims the lines to get his bearings. He realizes with a twist in his gut that the scene he’d dreamt about that night was coming up—when Titania is brought out from under the spell of Cupid’s flower and realizes she’s been in love with an ass (or, well, a man with an ass’s head). Isaac takes a deep breath in through his nose and then lets it out slowly through his mouth. It’s just a play. It’s just a play. It’s just a play.

Scott sliding over on the grass until his side is pressed up against one of Isaac’s thighs breaks his mental spiral of anxiety, and Isaac starts reading by reflex:

_“Enter Titania and Bottom. Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, Mustardseed, and other Fairies attending. Oberon behind, unseen…”_

Scott curls the fingers of one of his hands into the hem of the shirt Isaac’s wearing, his knuckles warm and gentle against Isaac’s back. It’s probably supposed to be distracting, anything to get out of homework for a few more hours, but instead Isaac finds it comforting, and he reads on:

_“Titania. ‘Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, while I thy amiable cheeks do coy, and stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head, and kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.’”_

Scott laughs. “I forgot he had a donkey head.” Then he quiets suddenly, and Isaac knows he’s remembering Isaac’s dream, about the wolf mask and leaving Isaac. Scott curls in closer against Isaac’s side, his fingers in Isaac’s shirt unclenching and splaying out full against Isaac’s back, solid and warm.

Isaac glances back at Scott, whose upper body is mostly behind him, and smiles. “Poor guy has no idea, too.”

Scott doesn’t say anything back, but his fingers rub light circles in Isaac’s back. Isaac keeps reading aloud, making it through all of Titania doting on Bottom and then to Oberon’s speech, when he takes the spell off Titania. Isaac gets as far as, _“‘But first I will release the fairy queen. Be as thou wast wont to see: Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower—’”_ when Scott abruptly pulls himself up and around behind Isaac, his legs splayed out on either side of Isaac, his chest pressed up tight against Isaac’s back, one hand heavy on Isaac’s shoulders and the other threading into his hair, and Isaac has to stop to catch his breath. It’s typical of Scott to find the best position to remind Isaac that he’s _there_ and _wanting him_ without actually tearing the textbook out of Isaac’s hands and pushing him back to sit on top of him. The gentle scratching of Scott’s fingernails in Isaac’s scalp feels as intimate as anything they’ve done, and Isaac steadies himself, letting his eyes lose focus on the page as he counts his pounding heartbeats until they slow again to normal speed.

When Isaac finally continues reading and Titania asks, _“‘How came these things to pass? O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!’”_ he doesn’t even flinch. He smiles, instead, and leans back against Scott, who presses a kiss against his shoulder blade.

The rest of the play is short, and very funny, and they finish in another half hour, only stopping once to make out in the grass.

_“‘Give me your hands, if we be friends,’”_ Isaac says to Scott, who’s currently lying on his stomach on Isaac’s back, the two of them laid out pressed together like pancakes. Scott’s chin digs into Isaac’s shoulder, but Isaac doesn’t care.

_“‘And Robin shall restore amends,’”_ Scott murmurs into Isaac’s ear, then rolls off him onto the grass.

Isaac snakes a hand out and twists it up under Scott’s shirt, just resting heavy and warm against Scott’s chest. Scott closes his eyes and smiles up at the sky.

“I wish summer could last forever,” Scott says.

Isaac nods, his face pressing against Scott’s shoulder. They’re quiet and still for a few minutes, the heat of the sun bearing down on them but feeling comfortable. Isaac’s just thinking about how twenty-four hours ago he’d woken up in bed with Erica, and how far away the simple, impartial love of the pack feels from this full warm maybe-love he has now with Scott, when Scott sighs heavily and groans, flinging an arm up to cover his eyes.

“What?” Isaac asks.

“I have class tomorrow. And _work,”_ Scott answers.

“You’re still working at the clinic?” Isaac asks.

“Yeah, in the afternoons,” Scott says. “It’s like during the school year.”

Isaac thinks about it for a few seconds, then asks tentatively, “Do you—do you maybe need help at the clinic?”

Scott twists around to look at Isaac’s face. “You want to work there too?”

Isaac shrugs, not meeting Scott’s eyes.

Scott laughs, one of his hands tickling into Isaac’s side. “You just want to make out in the supply closet.”

Isaac squirms away from his hand and then raises an eyebrow. “Now that that’s been presented as a possibility, yes. But uh—” He frowns a little, then admits, “Ever since you showed me I could make that dog with cancer feel better, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I—I just want to help.”

Scott smiles softly at him, lifting his hand to trace his fingertips in a line down the side of Isaac’s face. “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, that's it for now. I do have a bit more, but it takes place later in the story line.
> 
> This would eventually become a poly relationship between Scott, Isaac & Allison. I wish there was more Isaac/Allison in the fandom, because they have so much in common. Both have been hurt and manipulated by family members, both have lost loved ones, both have seen themselves as monsters or acted like monsters. They're both sarcastic and sharp but with this sweet side to them that only Scott can really bring out completely. I love the idea of the three of them together as equal partners, though with Scott and Allison sort of as Isaac's alphas--Scott his sun and Allison his moon. Unfortunately, I just can't get over this mental block, and I apologize for publishing an unfinished fic.


End file.
